


Blessed

by Hope



Category: Lord of the Rings - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Interspecies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-11-17
Updated: 2002-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-02 13:31:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>set in Minas Tirith, post-quest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blessed

**Author's Note:**

> A mathom.

"Frodo!"

There he was, just ahead; it didn't take Aragorn very long to find him, despite the delay between Frodo's departure and his own. He seemed to instinctively know the confusing twists and turns of these huge passageways, whereas Frodo . . .

"Frodo!" (He still didn't turn)

. . . was understandably out of his depth - more accustomed to smaller, rounder passageways, with polished wood and hand-woven rugs underfoot rather than cool marble.

Finally he stopped, and it didn't take Aragorn long to catch up to him then, where he was leaning against the smooth wall by a slit-like window; not looking out but rather still gazing blankly up the hallway, panting slightly with the exertion of running.

He was a dark shadow against the light of the window, and his arm trembled as he reached out as if to casually rest it on the stone edge of the window.

"Wasn't the food to your liking?" Wry humour it was to be then, a self-perceived weakness Aragorn had always involuntarily succumbed to when he was at a loss as to what else to . . .

Frodo didn't look at Aragorn. His voice shook a little as he spoke. "Oh, not at all, it was wonderful, I just . . ." he gestured towards the window, still not looking at it, a limp, abortive movement of his hand. "Needed some fresh air."

Aragorn moved to the opposite side of the window, moving into Frodo's line of vision. Frodo turned his head away again, facing over his shoulder almost, into the darkness of the hall.

"Yes, the view is wonderful, isn't it?" Aragorn said softly, kneeling as if to gaze better out the tall window, resting his hand unobtrusively by Frodo's.

Frodo pulled back a little. "I don't like heights."

His skin seemed blue in the meagre light coming through the window - 'twilight' had always seemed too simple a word for that gradual, almost imperceptible change between day and night; the moment in which the sun had fled and all that was left was a velvet, starless sky . . .

"Don't," Frodo said abruptly, flinching away from the gentle touch of Aragorn's fingers on his jaw. He turned again, his entire body this time; the contact with the wall rolling from shoulder to back. He pressed his face against the wall. His hand sliding off the windowsill; Aragorn grasped it before it could escape him. Frodo hissed.

"Why not?" Aragorn murmured, feeling cool sweat in Frodo's palm.

"I don't like being touched." Frodo's voice forced out through clenched teeth.

"You would deny yourself this then, even now?" Frodo's skin was cold under his hand, and he could feel muscles in Frodo's cheek clench as he swallowed, squeezed his eyes shut.

"It was never mine to accept or deny." Harsh, almost a sob.

He had been colder, though, once before - a memory Aragorn could not deny (could never deny): an icy grip, fading eyes gazing up at him and _"Strider, **please**"_ . . .

Frodo had craved touch, once. (_he could never deny . . ._)

"No," Frodo whispered, and _Please_, and

"Do not begrudge yourself this."

Frodo's skin seemed to get warmer the more of it he uncovered, which didn't make much sense; but the feel of it velvet-smooth under his hand was enough to make reason as distant as the unseen stars.

And it was a different feeling, this; his face clean-shaven and smooth now as at rubbed against the skin of Frodo's still-smoother throat. And Frodo's sobbing breath seemed closer now that there were walls to fold in on them, and

"No . . ." The word losing all coherency as it curled around Frodo's teeth; and Aragorn's own voice wet against Frodo's chest: _"Do not begrudge yourself this."_ His hand curling around something that made Frodo sob in earnest.

And then, oh he couldn't tell if it was still dark in the hall or not because Frodo was writhing against him and yet still; shaking and silent and taut

and when he comes to rest the air in the hall is still alive with the sound of their breaths and the pounding of blood through Aragorn's veins.

And Frodo's so close, now, close and warm and has slid limp and boneless into Aragorn's lap and Aragorn thinks and feels and _wants_ and the blood burns through his veins and his hand is slick enough from Frodo's own seed to . . . And Frodo is so close that he could just--

"Arwen," Frodo gasped as if he were drowning; the name slowing the beat of Aragorn's heart to a less frantic - if more painful - rhythm. The echo of cold stone in the hallway immense about them creeps back into Aragorn's awareness, Frodo's panting breaths, verging on sobs but for the exhaustion weighing down his limbs. Aragorn slides arms about him, trembling transferring to his own body as Frodo clings to his tunic with a bone-white grip.

The moon rises, slashing the dark of the hallway with a silvered wound, and a sound rises again from the courtyard below, something not unfamiliar but pure this time, not muffled by the sound of Aragorn's pulse in his ears.

"Arwen," Frodo murmurs again, and the song ascends, rising up with the light of the moon and colouring the night, cold and yearning and clenching around Aragorn's heart, Frodo still and quiet in his arms, thrumming with the notes of the song.

"A song of the Blessed Realm," Aragorn murmurs into Frodo's hair, his voice harsh and grating against the moon-gilded pitch of Arwen's.

Frodo's reply is soft, almost imperceptible, interweaving with the song, "I know."


End file.
